Lakeland College

Muskies Clinch Playoff Berth on Senior Day

Athletics - posted on 2/17/2007

Lakeland earned the sixth and final seed in the Northern Athletics Conference tournament with a 57-50 win over Marian in Lakeland's Moose and Dona Woltzen Gymnasium on Saturday afternoon on Senior and Family Day.

Lakeland College will play its next game at #3 Seed Benedictine for the quarterfinals of the NAC Tournament on Monday at 7 p.m. For a complete bracket visit the Northern Athletics Conference website.

"We knew we had to win," said senior Danielle Duranceau. "We knew we couldn't end our season losing to Marian because they are the same style of team of us. They are good. So we knew we'd have to play a good game to come out and beat them."

Duranceau paced the Muskies with a 24 points, 11 total rebounds and 3 steals to earn a double-double in the final regular season game of her career. Senior Jenna Boehm added 11 points, five rebounds and a block in the contest.

The game got off to a slow a start with neither team getting on the board until senior Danielle Duranceau nailed a jumper with 16:04 remaining in the first half. The Muskies soon jumped ahead by seven points before the Sabres made a comeback just before the second half to go into the locker room with a 29-24 advantage.

"The last twenty minutes were more critical for us than the first," said Lakeland head coach April Arvan. "A lot of credit goes to our senior leadership and our freshman stepping up."

In the second half, the Sabres continued to dominate taking a 36-26 lead with 17 minutes left. The Muskies cut the Sabres' lead and tied things up 47-47 with just five minutes left on the clock. Then the Muskies made like Windex and cleaned the glass snatching rebound after rebound to maintain possession of the ball and the lead as the clock ran down.

"The last five minutes we tied it up and went on a 10-3 run we did a good job of hanging in there," said Arvan.

"We have had tough NAC schedule, now we get to see what damage we can do," said Arvan. "We have nothing to lose right now. We just can just go out there and have some fun."

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